


Rulebook

by pearl_o



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, Dick Pics, M/M, Texting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-09
Updated: 2014-07-19
Packaged: 2018-02-08 02:28:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1923318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pearl_o/pseuds/pearl_o
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles manages to wait a full five days after graduation before he shows up at Mr. Lehnsherr's door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Five days after graduation, Charles Xavier arrives on Erik's doorstep.

Charles's face is flushed and a little sweaty, and he's grinning broadly. His clothing at school had always been neat, tidy, almost serious, so it's startling to see him in a Doctor Who t-shirt and a pair of jean shorts. The only other time Erik's seen him in shorts was at soccer practice, occasionally, when Erik would have to cross by the field to get to the parking lot and head home after school. His unifom shorts were short and tight, borderline obscene in Erik's opinion. At least these aren't that.

Charles's smile widens further. Smug, Erik thinks. That's the word for it.

Erik knows what he should say, which is _"What are you doing here, Charles?"_ Or even, perhaps, if he wanted to avoid beating around the bush at all, _"Go home, Charles."_

But what comes out of his mouth instead is, "I thought you were the delivery boy."

It earns Erik a raised eyebrow. "I could be," Charles says, "if that's how you'd like it to go. Mr. Lehnsherr, do you like your pizza with ... _extra sausage_?"

Erik starts to close the door, but Charles wedges himself against the frame of the door with a laugh. "I'm sorry, but it was such a good opening. Let me come inside, at least, won't you?"

"Why should I?" Erik says. "Give me one good reason."

He should be wondering, perhaps, how Charles even got his address, but truthfully it doesn't surprise him. Charles, more than anyone else in the world, has the means to obtain any information he might desire. 

"Well, for one thing, you're letting all the cool air out into the hot hallway," Charles says, and before Erik can point out that shutting the door would solve that just as nicely, he continues, "and for another, you _want_ me here."

It's true. Disgustingly so, in fact. "I suppose you read that off me."

"Not this time," Charles says. The cheekiness fades a little bit, leaving something more serious in its wake. The first hint of uncertainty he's shown at all. It makes Erik like him better. "But I didn't have to, did I?" he adds, but it sounds like a genuine question, waiting for a response. He's gnawing just a little on his bottom lip, worrying it between his teeth as Erik looks him over again.

After a minute, Erik takes a step back, giving him room to enter, and Charles's grin practically splits his face as he crosses the threshold.

Erik closes the door and relocks it - using his hands, rather than his power, which is unnecessary but buys him another minute before he has to face Charles. When he does turn around, Charles is standing in the living room, looking curiously around as though he's fascinated, though there's little enough to see.

"It really isn't like I pictured it at all," Charles says after a moment.

Erik grunts. He moves further into the room, settling himself against the arm of the couch, arms folded across his chest. "Have you spent a lot of time picturing it?"

"Oh, ages," Charles says. "Although not nearly as much as I've spent imagining your bedroom."

There's no wink or smirk after he says, which makes it worse; it's so perfectly matter-of-fact. The sharp pang of arousal and the restricted air in his throat hit Erik at the same time. He has to take a deep breath before he can speak.

"It's not appropriate, you being here," he finally manages to say. His voice sounds firm and authoritative to his own ears. It's the same voice he uses in the classroom. 

Charles has finished his intense examining of the room, which leaves him free to place all his focus directly onto Erik. His eyes are fiercely, intensely blue and his gaze is almost eerie, impossible to look away from. 

"Why is that?" Charles says, his voice cool, calm, collected. 

Charles has been practicing for this, Erik thinks suddenly, and the realization only flares up the heat he's trying to ignore. 

Erik scowls. "You know perfectly well why."

"Hm," Charles says, sounding thoughtful. He takes a few steps forward, making his way toward Erik, and Erik does not allow himself to move or react in any way. Not to jerk back, not to lean forward. Charles only stops when he's fully in Erik's personal space, close enough that if Erik extended his arm they would be touching, or if he stretched his legs he could tuck his feet behind Charles's calves and pull him completely within the bracket of his body. He's close enough that Erik can see the places sweat has darkened his hair, thick locks a little matted against the forehead and by his ears. Erik can see the freckles on his nose, and where their patterns begin to sneak out from under his collar and the sleeves of his shirt.

Charles says, in a voice that's so soft Erik has to strain a little to hear it over the air conditioning, "What I know, Mr. Lehnsherr, is this. I know that you've wanted me to since the first time you saw me in your homeroom, back in September. I know I'm eighteen. I know you're not my teacher anymore. I know I've waited months and months and months for this, because those things matter to you and I didn't want to make you hate yourself. And I know that there's barely two months left until I leave for college, and I don't want to waste any more time. Is that what you meant?"

The flush in his cheeks isn't from heat or exertion any longer. Erik can feel the anticipation and excitement rolling off Charles in waves.

"You're wrong," Erik says, and then, as Charles's face starts to crumple with shock, "It wasn't the first time. It was a couple months, at least."

He pushes himself off the couch to stand, which brings him and Charles even closer, only inches separating them. Charles is short, maybe half a foot shorter than Erik, and he has to tilt his head up to keep their eyes locked together. His red mouth is slightly open and as Erik watches, Charles licks it, getting it wet and shiny. Erik doesn't _think_ it's meant to be a tease; it seems too subtle, which hasn't been Charles's style so far - but then, apparently Charles has known all of it, all of Erik's shame this entire time, and not said a word, so what does Erik know, after all?

What a fool he feels, in retrospect. Of course the shields Emma had taught him hadn't been enough. He might as well have been sexually harassing the boy all year. No matter how many times he tried to stop, no matter how many times he reminded himself how wrong it was, he couldn't stop thinking about it. 

"No--" Charles breathes out. "No, you were good, you were discreet. Your mind is extraordinary, it really is, no one else would ever have known. I wouldn't have known, I swear, if I - if I hadn't gone looking."

"You went looking," Erik repeats.

Charles nods. "I ... hoped."

Erik lets a harsh breath out of his nose, and then - fine, fine; he gives in. He bends forward those few remaining inches that separate them, pressing his mouth hard against Charles's.

_Finally_ , Charles says, the thought echoing between them so loudly Erik startles. Charles has him caught, though, his arms slung eagerly around Erik's neck and his mouth open and pliant beneath him. Erik places his hands on Charles's waist, but as they kiss they drift down to his hips, and then to his ass, kneading the firm, round flesh through the thick denim. Charles breaks away from the kiss to breath out a soft _oh_ of surprise against Erik's shoulder.

"We need some rules," Erik says. He sounds rough and jagged to himself, but Charles shudders in his arms at the sound.

Charles twists a little in the embrace, somehow managing to plaster himself more thoroughly against Erik's body. They're both hard, already; when Erik hitches him up, he goes up on his toes, almost straddling Erik's thigh. "What kind of rules?" he says. _His_ voice still sounds almost normal, despite every other sign of arousal his body gives out. He could be sitting in the front row of a classroom, answering roll call, and not sound any different.

"You don't call me Mr. Lehnsherr," Erik says. "It's Erik."

"Erik," Charles repeats, licking at a tendon in Erik's neck.

There's more, but it's getting more and more difficult to think. "And - and here. Only here. Nobody else knows about it."

Charles hums a noise of agreement against his throat. _And what else_? he says. It's the first time Erik has felt him use his power so directly, purposeful mind-to-mind communication, and if Erik wasn't aroused already that would do it. 

It was his abilities Erik had first noticed about Charles. One of the reasons he had decided to go into teaching in the first place was to be able to mentor other young mutants. He's only been teaching two years, but Charles has been by far the most powerful student he's come across. He thinks that might remain true even if he stays at the school for decades. 

But once his attention was on Charles, he noticed _more_. He noticed everything about him, and he didn't stop noticing--

_It's okay_ , Charles soothes him. _You haven't done anything wrong, Erik, I promise._

Charles pulls him back down into a kiss, and Erik is only aware of how stiff he'd grown as the tension begins to leave his body once more.

"Do I get to make rules, too?" Charles asks after a few minutes. They've moved across the room as they kissed and groped at each other, until Charles's back is pressed up against the wall of the short hallway that leads out of the living room and to the bathroom, linen closet, and Erik's bedroom.

"Yeah," Erik says, muffled as he mouths the line of Charles's jaw. His last shave was uneven, so most of his skin is butter-smooth but there are still patches of short and prickly hair. Erik should show him how to use a straight razor, he thinks. "Of course."

"Third rule." Charles's hands are up and under Erik's polo, almost painfully tight where they clasp his ribs. "No more beating yourself up over it. Just... be here, with me, okay?" _Eighteen isn't even that much younger than twenty-five_ , Charles adds, which is something only an eighteen-year-old can really believe, but since it's not said out loud Erik feels no qualms on ignoring it.

"Fourth rule," Charles continues, "is ... I told you, Erik, two months. I'm going to go to Harvard, and I'm going to be good, and brilliant, and nice, and I'm going to do it all right, just like I always do. I will. But first. First. I just want to have this summer that's _mine_. Not school and not my family and not, not anything else, just something that's for me. Can you--will you--"

Charles seems to run out of words, then. It's a first, in Erik's experience. He doesn't know how to react to the phemonemon. He settles on reaching a hand up, pushing a damp lock of hair out of Charles's suddenly shy-looking face and behind his ear. "Okay," Erik says quietly. "Okay."

Charles's eyes flutter close and he turns his face into Erik's palm. Something painful chimes in Erik's chest and he pushes the feeling away, as deep packed down as he can manage. He can examine it later, when he's alone, without a telepath here to discover it with him.

"So does that mean you'll take me to bed now?" Charles says. His voice catches in the middle of the sentence, but once he's cleared his throat, he sounds as bright and assured as ever. "I told you, I've had a lot of fantasies about it."

Erik lowers his hands down to catch Charles's wrists in his, and begins leading him slowly, step by step, down the hall. "Yeah? Like what?"

"Sucking you off, mostly," Charles says matter-of-factly. He laughs at the way Erik's grip on him tightens, and probably at the way all the thoughts in Erik's head seem to leave in a rush. 

"Fuck you," Erik says when he manages to form words again. He uses his powers to slam his door open without taking his hands off Charles, and pushes Charles through it hard enough that Charles stumbles, only catching himself as his legs hit the bed. Charles stares back at him, wide-eyed and thrilled.

"Well?" Erik says. "Put your money where your mouth is, Charles."

Slowly, still maintaining the eye contact, Charles drops down to his knees. Erik resists the noise that wants to come out of his mouth at the sight. Instead, he shrugs out of his polo, throwing it onto the floor. He brings his hands down to his waist to unbutton his trousers, but Charles stops him.

"Let me." He shuffles forward, still on his knees, and reaches for the fly himself. Erik can't help but notice the way his hands are trembling slightly. 

_Please don't let him be a virgin_ , Erik thinks.

"Shut up," Charles snaps, looking up long enough to shoot him a glare before returning his gaze to Erik's crotch. Erik holds himself still as Charles pulls down the zipper, tugging the trousers and underwear down together to Erik's thighs. Erik stares at Charles's face as Charles stares at his cock.

"Wow," Charles says. "You're really big, you know."

"For fuck's sake--" Erik says, but Charles shuts him up with the first touch of his pretty mouth to Erik's dick.

One thing becomes clear to Erik almost immediately: Charles is almost certainly not a virgin. Another thing strikes him close after, which is that it's going to be over much, much too quickly. It's been years since Erik last had sex - he was still in college - and it was never, to his memory, this good.

_That's okay_ , Charles says into his head, without ever losing the rhythm of his blowjob. And then, a minute later: _You can pull my hair if you want._

Erik does want, in fact. 

At least he has enough self-awareness left not to allow himself to come in Charles's mouth. Charles seems perfectly willing to let him (which says worrying things, perhaps, about the sex education at the school), but Erik resists. He loses point for style, though, considering the mess he makes of Charles's stupid shirt.

"It's okay," Charles says. _Now_ his voice sounds ruined, another small satisfaction deep in Erik's gut. "I'll wash it before I leave. And with the condoms - I wouldn't let anybody _else_ , you know. Just you."

He rises to his feet on unsteady legs, wiping his swollen mouth with the back of his hand. His hair's a mess from Erik's hands. 

Erik swallows. "Take off your clothes."

Charles is undressing almost before Erik's done talking. He lies the clothes carefully on the edge of the bed, and then straightens, holding himself still under Erik's gaze. Erik thinks, again, about the days he would spy Charles at soccer practice. The uniform had showed off some of his muscles, his compact sturdiness, but seeing it all displayed is still something else. Miles of pale white skin, and his hard red cock straining up toward his belly.

"What do you want?" Erik says.

Charles closes his eyes, and Erik can see a shiver go through him. " _Everything_ ," he says. "Please."

Everything is a tall order, but they have to start somewhere. Erik pulls Charles in by one hand, pressing their bodies close again, and as they kiss, he wraps his grip around Charles's cock and begins to stroke.

It's over almost as soon as he's begun; a handful of strokes and Charles is shaking apart in his arms and spurting into his palm. Erik kisses him through it, his free hand rubbing gentle against Charles's side. When Charles has recovered enough to speak, he sighs and murmurs, "Thank you."

_Rule five_ , Erik thinks, burying his face in Charles's hair and projecting as clearly as he can. _No thank you's, either._

* * *

Ten minutes later, they're both clothed again, Charles wearing an old college tee of Erik's while his own shirt runs through the wash cycle. That's when the Thai food finally arrives, ridiculously late; Erik tips well over his norm, nonetheless.

Two hours later, Charles leaves with a lingering good-bye kiss and a promise of tomorrow, to fetch his bike from the racks outside Erik's apartment complex and ride back to his house. He's challenged Erik to a game of chess, when he comes back, and there are a series of Netflix documentaries he insists Erik needs to see. And, of course, they've barely started on "everything."

The apartment looks different, with Charles gone. His sanctuary's been invaded, and his view of it is colored by everything that's just happened. Excitement and wonder, dread and doubt. 

_Rule number three_ , Erik reminds himself, and he collects his gym bag and heads out, to run laps around the track until he's too exhausted to think about anything. 

It almost works. It _would_ work, except for the text he finds on his phone when he finishes. _see you soon_ , it says. Erik doesn't recognize the number, but he knows exactly who it's from. Xavier sent him a goddamned _selfie_. It's official: Erik has lost all control over his life.

The picture is cut off, so nothing is visible above the chin or below the waist; no face, and no dick shots, either. Just Charles's freckled chest what appears to be a badly lit bathroom, the handful of marks Erik left on his shoulders and neck in lurid contrast to his pale skin.

Erik should delete it. He doesn't.

* * *

The end of his second year of teaching had felt like a victory. Everything still feels new enough that he's learning everyday, but unlike his first year he doesn't feel like he's practically drowning, diving in head first. This year, he's managed to tread water, at the very least, adapting and changing from his earlier mistakes. 

All his classes were the same as his first year. Besides homeroom, he had a few sections of senior English, some of Life Resources (a glorified study hall, with one day or so a week devoted to some lesson like how to write a check or how to organize a resume), and then one elective. In fall, it's Creative Writing. In spring, Mutant Skills.

That's his favorite, of course. It's his baby. That class is the reason he wanted this job so badly, why he fought and worked so hard to get it. There's only a handful of schools in the state that offer a class like it, but this district has both the population and relative wealth to support it. The previous teacher had been a baseline, and as far as Erik can tell, had barely done a thing with it, which meant Erik pretty much got to build it from the ground up. He _still_ has a million ideas of how to change and improve for next year, and with the semester just ended he's already impatient to start again.

The main problem, of course, is getting kids to sign up for it. Electives like that are a hard sell for upperclassmen, who are usually either busy stuffing their schedules bulgingly full with college bait, or doing the least they're required. Erik's strategy is to make notes of every mutant student, and try to talk to as many as he can about why they could consider taking the class. It's what he had done with Charles. 

He would have known who Charles was, even if Charles wasn't a mutant, and even if Charles wasn't in his homeroom in the fall. Of all the overachieving kids, Charles could have been their king. A genius, supposedly, with perfect grades, a series of AP credits, extra classes at the local college for science and math; soccer team, key club, newspaper; early decision for Harvard. Friendly with just about everyone - though Erik had already begun to notice, even then, that he didn't seem to be particularly close to anyone. He'd already started to notice a lot of things about him. 

Charles had bitten his lip, leaning awkwardly against the desk as Erik gave him his passionate speech on exactly why he should try Mutant Skills. "I'll try, Mr. Lehnsherr," Charles said when Erik finally paused for breath. "But I'm just really busy."

There had been an apology in his tone. Erik had written him off right then. And yet, there Charles had been the next term, front row and center. He'd dropped journalism for it. 

Looking back, Erik still can't tell exactly when he crossed the line. When did it start being personal? When did he start looking forward to seeing Charles every day? When he did start seeing Charles as a young man, instead of a student under his care?

He didn't do anything. He _wouldn't_ have ever done anything. But when Charles is setting himself before him like this, on a platter...

Erik has had plenty of practice with self-sacrifice, and even more with being alone. Neither of them get easier. 

Charles is an adult now, and he's no longer Erik's responsibility. It's okay, to take what's given, if it means they both get what they want.

* * *

At home again, sprawled out on his battered old couch, he texts Charles back: _Tease_.

Barely a few minutes later: an emoji of a winking face.

Is this how teenagers flirt now? Erik doesn't know. Fuck, maybe this is how people _his_ age flirt. He wouldn't know that, either.

Before Erik can respond, there's another text: _Not a tease, just a promise. And this is where you should send me a picture in return._

_Oh yeah?_ Erik types slowly. He misses when phones had real keyboards; his fingers always feel stubby and awkward on the screen. For something that's almost all metal, his cell is more frustrating than not. _A picture of what?_

He can almost feel the impatience when the next text arrives. It makes him wonder. He doesn't know how far away Charles lives, exactly, but his range must be considerable. If they could be talking telepathically, then the text messages really are a tease, the formality of distance to heighten the anticipation.

Charles's text reads _What do you think?_

Erik can't help but snort. Immediately, he responds _NO._

_Please._

The single word stops him. He can't help but think of Charles in his bedroom, the look on his face as he talked about the summer for himself, the desperate rebellion Erik could hear in his voice. The need. Charles, with every moment of his life planned out - and this is what he's doing with his summer, not some camp or internship, some enrichment program that everyone would expect of him, but _this_. 

And Erik had promised, then - rule number four.

_This is the single stupidest thing I have ever done in my life_ , Erik types, hoping the accusation he feels comes through in the words, and then he gets up off the couch and heads to his bedroom and the mirror on his closet door.

It turns out taking a decent picture of your own hard-on is a hell of lot harder than Erik would have thought, considering the sheer number of assholes and scum of the earth who've managed it. It takes him a while to get a shot that satisfies his picky standards enough to send. 

His stomach drops as soon as he does, though, and he stares down at his phone dumbly until it buzzes again a minute later.

_Mmm. I won't say thank you, but rest assured that will go a long way towards helping me while away the long summer night, my dear._ Charles ends the messages with another emoji, this one with a silly smile, and Erik can't help it, he has to sit down on the edge of the bed, drop his phone beside him so he can bury his head in his hands and laugh.

They're going to have to figure out a few more rules, Erik thinks, or he's not going to survive two months. Although - it occurs to him, when he's under the sheets later, rubbing one out to that shot of Charles's chest - it's quite possible he won't survive anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

It's a little past seven when Charles wakes up, sun already shining in through the crack in his curtains. Compared to how early he gets up during the school year, seven o'clock seems practically decadent. But it's summer now, and for once in his life, he has nowhere to be, no plans at all.

Well, though... that's not quite true, not anymore. Not after yesterday. Still, it's not as if he can just show up at Mr. Lehnsherr's - no, at _Erik's_ \- apartment - this early in the morning. Charles has hours to kill yet, before he can go back. 

Charles shivers a little against his sheets. He can feel his cheeks warming, probably flushing as he reviews his memories from yesterday. His dick is already hard, which isn't exactly unusual in the mornings, but the situation is only getting worse as he lets his mind go over every kiss and touch.

It's one way to kill time. He rolls over toward the edge of the bed, fumbling at his nightstand. Phone in one hand, a few pumps of lotion into the other, and he's scrambling to kick off his pajama bottoms as he brings up Erik's text from last night on his screen.

The picture's too small, of course. You can't do it justice on a phone screen. He wishes he could see Erik's face, too. 

But in a few hours he'll get to see whatever he wants, Charles realizes. It's that thought as much as his hand on his cock (fast, rough strokes, working himself furiously) that makes him bite his lip, fierce arousal pulsing through him. He'll get to _do_ whatever he wants, as long as Erik wants it too, and Charles is pretty sure Erik wants everything just as much as he does. Charles had been right, after all, those times he let himself glance into Erik's mind at school. He'd thought he must be - Charles didn't get things like that wrong, as a rule, not things he'd read straight from people's heads - but he'd been worried nonetheless that he had missed something, gotten it wrong. As though maybe in wanting so much he had somehow seen what he wanted to see, instead of the data that was there.

God, how many times over the last year has he jerked off, thinking of Erik? In the hundreds, surely. Some of the fantasies had elaborate detailed storylines. Other of them were straight to the point. None of them were as good as the real thing yesterday, sucking Erik off in his bedroom.

Erik's cock hadn't been quite that big in any of Charles's fantasies. He hadn't seemed that amazed by it, either, or that desperate for it. Fantasy had _nothing_ on reality. 

Charles drops his phone as he comes, spurting over his knuckles with a hoarse cry. He lies in bed for a while, breathing heavily and staring up at the ceiling, before he reaches out to the nightstand again, this time for some Kleenex to clean himself up. When he picks up his phone, he checks the time. Less than ten minutes since he woke up.

A shower is what's called for next, he decides. And after that he can figure out what to do to fill up the time until he can head out to Erik's.

* * *

It's odd being in the house alone. No servants, no cook, no family. Mother and Kurt always headed out for the summer house as soon as school was out, but this is the first year he hasn't been packed along with them, at least until he could escape from their clutches into whatever camp or academic program he was taking that year. The only reason he's not with them this time is because of the spot he'd lined up earlier in the spring to work as Dr. Velasquez's assistant all summer long, helping in the lab. More work, more experience, more more more, never enough.

Charles had canceled weeks ago, back when he first decided that this summer was going to be different. For the first time that he can remember, he has no plans whatsoever. It's scary as all fuck, if Charles is perfectly honest with himself. If he thinks about it too much he feels like he's drifting out to sea; he has to remind himself how temporary it is. Two months until college, and everything will be back to normal, and he'll be back to his detailed lifeplan. This is just ... a little air, to keep him sane. That, and maybe a chance to see what it would be like to be all the things he's not. 

But of course, Mother and Kurt don't need to know any of that, and so Charles didn't bother to tell them. He does feel a little bad that Raven's trapped with them, but there's nothing he could do about that anyway. She does has camp lined up for later in the summer, though: horses, for the second year in a row, which is a first with Raven's obsessions. She'll be okay, especially since she's already texting and emailing him daily. 

The house, already absurdly big, seems even bigger when it's just Charles. Most of the rooms are shut up. He only really uses his bedroom and bath, the kitchen, and the den with the biggest TV. Maybe the library, too, though most of the time he just uses his iPad. Dozens and dozens of rooms in the house, and it's amazing how he doesn't miss any of them.

* * *

Probably the fantasy Charles thought about most was the basic - not to say cliched - one. He'd polished it in his mind until it shined, smooth and perfect and easy. Mr. Lehnsherr's classroom (he was Mr. Lehnsherr then). Mr. Lehnsherr would be giving a lecture, something about mutations, his voice as low and rumbly and fervently sincere as it always got when he was on the topic. Charles would watch him from his desk, his broad shoulders and his elegant hands and his intense eyes, and when the bell rang and all the other students rushed out, Charles would take his time with his books and his backpack, until everyone else was gone and only they were left. 

He'd wait until Mr. Lehnsherr was sitting at his desk, sorting through his papers, and then he would go and sit on the very edge, cocking his hip just so, smiling down at Mr. Lehnsherr and cornering him. Inviting him.

The dialogue wasn't important. Charles changed that out from time to time. Sometimes he skipped it entirely. No, what was important was that Charles would be - he would be wild, and wicked, and irresistible. Like someone in a movie or a book somewhere. Nothing else would matter, and Mr. Lehnsherr would use his power to lock the door, and he'd take everything Charles was offering, right then and there.

It was a good fantasy. Ridiculous, totally ridiculous, but good. Charles's pornography habits that year had rather had a theme develop.

* * *

Charles is pretty sure his crush started the first day of school. There were degrees of crushes, though, and those first days it was purely shallow. If you liked guys at all (and any lingering doubts Charles might have had on that score had been put to rest last summer at science camp, when the friends-with-benefits blowjobs he and his roommate had exchanged for the length of the program had confirmed all his suspicions of his own bisexuality), then surely it was impossible _not_ to appreciate Erik. He just... went around, every day, looking like _that_.

That was fine, though. Controllable. Like looking at a model in a magazine, except you didn't expect to see people that good-looking in real life. But then as the weeks went by, Charles started to notice Erik's wickedly dry sense of humor (which seemed to go over the heads of most of his classmates). The bright, prickly, oddly comfortable shape of his mind, familiar against all the others in the classroom every day. His attraction could only intensify from that.

Still, it was completely manageable, right up until the day Erik had cornered him to try and recruit him for the mutant studies class he was going to be teaching in the spring. _That's_ when Charles's stupid crush became this painfully earnest, obsessive _thing_. Game over; checkmate.

It did not, perhaps, say anything good about Charles as a person that he lived for the very occasional waft of frustrated desire he could get off of Mr. Lehnsherr. 

If Charles had thought there was any possibility Mr. Lehnsherr wouldn't hate himself for it, he would have done this _months_ ago. He would have broken the rules without even hesitating, thrilling and sickening as it would have been. 

Maybe. Probably.

* * *

Charles waits it out until ten o'clock. He dresses carefully, his oldest pair of khakis and another t-shirt he never wears. He feels like he's picking out a costume, but that makes sense, doesn't it? He's someone else, for these few months, someone wild and confident. He doesn't want Erik to just see the boy from his homeroom class. Someone who takes up more space than that, someone who could be his equal. 

He bikes again. There's a convenience store on the way to Erik's apartment complex, and Charles stops there to buy supplies. He's tempted by the drinks - biking is sweaty work, even if it's not quite as damnably hot this early - but he pictures himself in Erik's doorway, holding a giant slushie, and the image is revoltingly juvenile. He grabs a bottled water instead.

Charles reaches out his mind to find Erik's as soon as he gets within a few blocks. He can read anticipation, and nervousness, but none of the regret or unhappiness Charles worried might have cropped up during the hours they've been apart. Charles's relief is almost dizzying, and he grins as he locks up his bike and runs up the stairs to Erik's door.

Erik answers on the second knock. His mouth twists into something that probably wouldn't be recognizable as a smile unless you'd spent a lot of time considering his expressions. 

"You come bearing gifts," Erik murmurs, nodding down at the plastic bag Charles carries. Charles hands it to him as he slips in the door.

He sits down on the old, falling-apart couch and watches as Erik removes the items onto his table: condoms and lubricant. "You have plans for today, I see," Erik says after a moment.

"I - not just today," Charles says. It earns him a chuckle from Erik.

"No," Erik agrees, "that would be too ambitious even for you, I think."

It doesn't seem like it should be a compliment, but it feels like one anyway. Perhaps it's just the way Erik is looking at him. 

Charles remembers another fantasy: naked in bed, lying down on his belly, cool sheets in a dark room. The creak of the door as Erik enters; the heavy rasp of his breath; the clink of his buckle and buttons and then the heavy thump as his belt falls to the ground; hearing it all but not looking. The waiting. Knowing but not knowing.

Charles shifts in his seat, spreading his legs wider. "Come here," he says, too softly, but Erik comes like he's pulled by a string. His hand's tight in Charles's hair when he bends down to kiss him. Charles likes it. 

"You'll fuck me today?" he says, trying to hide the hope in his voice, as if it's not a question but a demand or even simply a factual statement.

"Whatever you want," Erik says, and Charles can hear the words ring through his mind at the same time, _I told you everything, anything_ blinking behind them. 

"Good," Charles says breathlessly, and he shuts his eyes and lets himself go as Erik kisses him again.


End file.
